There is surprisingly little attention in Information Technology ethics to respect for persons, either as an ethical issue or as a core value of IT ethics or as a conceptual tool for discussing ethical issues of IT. In this, IT ethics is very different from another field of applied ethics, bioethics, where respect is a core value and conceptual tool. This paper argues that there is value in thinking about ethical issues related to information technologies, especially, though not exclusively, issues (...) concerning identity and identity management, explicitly in terms of respect for persons understood as a core value of IT ethics. After explicating respect for persons, the paper identifies a number of ways in which putting the concept of respect for persons explicitly at the center of both IT practice and IT ethics could be valuable, then examines some of the implicit and problematic assumptions about persons, their identities, and respect that are built into the design, implementation, and use of information technologies and are taken for granted in discussions in IT ethics. The discussion concludes by asking how better conceptions of respect for persons might be better employed in IT contexts or brought better to bear on specific issues concerning identity in IT contexts. (shrink)

This essay aims to show that arrogance corrupts the very qualities that make persons persons. The corruption is subtle but profound, and the key to understanding it lies in understanding the connections between different kinds of arrogance, self-respect, respect for others and personhood. Making these connections clear is the second aim of this essay. It will build on Kant's claim that self-respect is central to living our human lives as persons and that arrogance is, at its core, the failure to (...) respect oneself as a person. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. Thirty years later, Alison still recalls an episode in her teens, not frequently, but often enough, and always with something akin to self-loathing. There was this girl, Dana, someone Alison had been friends with in middle school, though they'd drifted apart. Dana was nice and smart and funny, and she was deformed (maybe thalidomide, Alison now thinks). That hadn't mattered to Alison when they were younger, but it was a big deal to her high school friends. They made up (...) mocking songs and dances and made fun of Dana in the halls. Alison never sang the songs or danced the dances, and she told her friends to stop it when they ridiculed Dana. But she has always known to her deep shame that she was not guilt-free - she knows she was too cowardly and too needy of acceptance to stand up for Dana, to make her friends stop tormenting, to stop being friends with tormentors, and she knows that she did laugh. After all these years, Alison can't forgive herself for Dana. Nor is she sure that she should - how could a self-respecting person be at peace with herself about something like this? Recurrent self-reproach reminds Alison of things she wants not to forget. (shrink)

This is the first anthology to bring together a selection of the most important contemporary philosophical essays on the nature and moral significance of self-respect. Representing a diversity of views, the essays illustrate the complexity of self-respect and explore its connections to such topics as personhood, dignity, rights, character, autonomy, integrity, identity, shame, justice, oppression and empowerment. The book demonstrates that self-respect is a formidable concern which goes to the very heart of both moral theory and moral life. Contributors: Bernard (...) Boxill, Stephen L. Darwall, John Deigh, Robin S. Dillon, Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Aurel Kolnai, Stephen J. Massey, Diana T. Meyers, Michelle M. Moody-Adams, John Rawls, Gabriele Taylor, Elizabeth Telfer, Laurence L. Thomas. (shrink)

The concept of self-respect is often invoked in feminist theorizing. But both women's too-common experiences of struggling to have self-respect and the results of feminist critiques of related moral concepts suggest the need for feminist critique and reconceptualization of self-respect. I argue that a familiar conception of self-respect is masculinist, thus less accessible to women and less than conducive to liberation. Emancipatory theory and practice require a suitably feminist conception of self- (...) class='Hi'>respect; I propose one such conception. (shrink)